Politically Cowed

Rumor: James Carville said that 'the Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows.'

12

Claim: James Carville said that “the Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows.”

UNDETERMINED

Example:[Collected via e-mail, October 2012]

James Carville, Democrat political consultant extraordinaire — and former Bill Clinton campaign manager, has astonishingly come out and said what all good Republicans have known for decades: Not only are most Democrats politically clueless; they’re easily manipulated by the puppet masters of their party as well. Wow. James Freaking Carville. Of all people. Here’s an excerpt, as quoted by Amazon.com:

“Ideologies aren’t all that important. What’s important is psychology.

The Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows. All you have to do is lay out enough silage and they come running. That’s why I became an operative working with Democrats. With Democrats all you have to do is make a lot of noise, lay out the hay, and be ready to use the ole cattle prod in case a few want to bolt the herd.

Eighty percent of the people who call themselves Democrats don’t have a clue as to political reality.

What amazes me is that you could take a group of people who are hard workers and convince them that they should support social programs that were the exact opposite of their own personal convictions. Put a little fear here and there and you can get people to vote any way you want.

The voter is basically dumb and lazy. The reason I became a Democratic operative instead of a Republican was because there were more Democrats that didn’t have a clue than there were Republicans.

Truth is relative. Truth is what you can make the voter believe is the truth. If you’re smart enough, truth is what you make the voter think it is. That’s why I’m a Democrat. I can make the Democratic voters think whatever I want them to.”

Origins:James Carville is a political consultant and commentator famous for his work as the lead strategist of Bill Clinton’s successful presidential campaign in 1992,

his stint as co-host of CNN’s Crossfire program, and his frequent appearances on CNN’s Situation Room news show. Although Carville is best known for employing his skills as a political strategist on behalf of Democratic candidates, he is married to Republican political consultant Mary Matalin.

In October 2012 the above-referenced quotation in which James Carville purportedly likened the Democratic constituency to “a herd of cows” received wide circulation on the Internet. It appeared to have originated with an unsourced posting to the ThinkExist.com which has been reproduced on a number of other web sites. However, we found no news article, speech, interview transcript, or printed source documenting this statement as one actually made by James Carville, and a representative from his office confirmed that the purported quote was not something Carville himself ever said:

Apparently the quote was falsely posted by an unknown user to a quotations website called thinkexist.com. We have contacted the website and asked them to take the quote down. James Carville never said these words, and this quote in no way belongs to James Carville.

Feel free to distribute my response, so people know the truth that this quote was 100% falsely attributed to James Carville.

However, the 2008 book A Chalice of Miracles by John W. Casperson quotes Carville (without identifying a source) in this vein:

The Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows. All you have to do is lay out enough silage and they come running. That’s why I became an operative working with Democrats. With Democrats all you have to do is make a lot of noise, lay out the hay, and be ready to use the ole cattle prod in case a few want to bolt the herd.